Posted on 02/12/2017 4:26:47 PM PST by janetjanet998
Edited on 02/12/2017 9:33:58 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The Oroville Dam is the highest in the nation.
What we have is a "knowledge inversion". This FERC/DWR document illustrates a "freshman" (at best) level of expertise & knowledge in this QCIP example.
The same is true for the "freshman" (at best) level of expertise in the engineering recognition of many "signs" of pre-spillway dangers that are spillway killers. They did nothing.
So bringing up this QCIP FERC/DWR interchange example is a highlight of the bigger problem of DWR - Do they have the true expertise to operate, maintain, and do engineering on a high-reliability structure that affects lives and property to hundreds of thousands of residents immediately below the dam.
While I have openly criticized some on the DWR side, I am sure there are also good staff members as well. However, management has been hired and sought out with a criteria important to the state of California specifically in staffing this organization. I am sure that an "environmental" engineer has desired expertise that a structural engineer or a materials engineer did not. I am sure an environmental biologist was hired ahead of an industrial chemist or industrial hygienist.
If the ownership group (CA DWR) has its hot buttons, it will fill its staff with people oriented toward that expertise. Thus we see a staff and various organizations prepared for forever-drought, no water available to store and the need for dams disappearing as humanity fades from the earth and mother nature recovers.
“So bringing up this QCIP FERC/DWR interchange example is a highlight of the bigger problem of DWR - Do they have the true expertise to operate, maintain, and do engineering on a high-reliability structure that affects lives and property to hundreds of thousands of residents immediately below the dam?”
This long thread which began when these same officials forced evacuation of residents living along the path of a possible dam break contains abundant scientific expert data that “NO, they are not qualified to even run a science fair experiment.”.
So I'm guessing you are asking a rhetorical question. KCBurke above provides the big picture answer that the dam is run by individuals who believe mankind's very existence on mother earth's bosom has injured her irreparably and therefore mankind deserves to die. This is a point of view which good science can and does tear to shreds. But the ideology of nihilism that drives these envirohippies emanates from the Philosophy Departments of 99% of American universities. The ideology that mankind is evil by its nature has been found in hotel rooms across this vast country for over a century.
KC Burke is very learned in high levels of tangential philosophical strata of initially perceived sophistry. Versed in many very clever forms of informational enlightenments. Transcendental absorption of these perspectives require many possible avenues of yielded truths.
Philosophically, one of the hard truths of Scientism is that one may not be able to deem the existence of a brain unless it is seen, touched, thus proving the thesis of its postulated existence. The Nihilists just give up. But the Scientism collective require the proof of substantiation of their theories.
However, if assumed the associative set in statistical probability acceptance of gray matter from many posthumous examinations, the new theory critically rests upon the existence of coherent thought as a collective firing of a vast array of electrical impulses. This highest plane could be deemed "coherent engineering thought existence" - separate from another form of "grand mal" electrical firing sequences.
Throwing out random acts of probabilistic "chance" in the "dumb luck" dimension, the final results in the answer to this highest plane of gray matter operational presence must be ascertained by scientific observation. In the end, the professed results of this profound scientific observation will be relegated to the highest authority to where any form of force in nature shall obey these findings - because Scientism says it shall be "it is", thus it shall be done.
Thus the many may rest assured because of the enlightened few, because Nature will suspend all laws of hydraulics, force, and gravity just to bow to the magnificence of the penultimate power of mankind's scientific formulation of their observational answers at "the Agency".
All that is left is either the red pill or the blue pill to determine which universe to choose (& ignore any wall of water racing down the valley) /S :-)
P.S. KC Burke speak um many good truths.
Back in the day when I tested concrete on-site I had to check the batch tickets for transit time. 45 minutes was the window from plant to pour. Any truck over 45 minutes old was rejected.
Never was a problem except for one job that was deep in a national forest and a hard 45 minutes from the plant.
Had to reject a couple of trucks on that job.
Has concrete technology changed in the past 30+ years that would allow longer batch times?
I wasn’t aware of the strict time constraint. That might require that they cross the top.
Drain cleanouts, perhaps?
There I go thinking like a plumber again... :)
That appears to me as a field cut by cut out saw — over-cuts beyond the four sides are faintly visible. The pipe? Well dang, I can’t say. It appears to lay parallel with the slab face. Could it just be laying there, a bit of pipe?
As to the philosophical understanding of the left, as we enter fully into our senior years we are faced with either understanding or homicidal dementia and my wife as asked me to avoid the later.
You are going to have to come up with a Riser Diagram tying that into something before I go for it. LOL
I hope you were having a bit of filosofical fun because I usually understand most of what you write;-—))
The red pill & blue pill is from The Matrix. In this case its choosing reality verses "the pod life form of reality".
"Grand Mal" = seizures from coherent electrical brain synapse firing (lobes get into a synchronous pattern), thus spoofing good thought (right thinking) with the hubris thought (seizure). Normal electrical and coherent thought have a useful purpose if the brain & thought are choosing reality (right thinking).
A good humor point to poke fun at the philosophy of Scientism is that if you can't prove something, then it can't be said to exist. Take this further and then ask someone, in the truths of Scientism, "how can I prove you actually have a brain?", "I can't see it, I can't touch it", therefore I have to conclude that I don't know if you have a brain. Thus Scientism becomes so absolute, that people can get caught up in their own hubris and miss true reality (right thinking).
Thus, being caught up in these form of beliefs, there are engineers, in their hubris, that believe their equations, theories, and positions can end up like "living in the Matrix pods" - disconnected in an alternate reality. But, even in an alternate reality, some engineers (and scientists) seem to firmly believe that the power of nature must obey what they believe, after all, their equations, theories, and positions are based on Scientism.
In the end, the people down below are the ones that will endure the outcome - thus the sarcasm of "ignoring the wall of water coming down the valley".
Yes, there are good people in these organizations. :-)
This was a sarcasm piece.
More photos & discussion:
One close up looks to reveal the bell coupling to a slab drain pipe. Note the crack above the drain in the concrete. Not sure where the dirt/soil came from. The depth of the concrete at this location is inferred at or near 2.5 feet as measured by the foot markers. One worker looks to be hammering out a channel that might be above another drain line. Two on the left may be working on a drain crack line. The worker on the right is chipping/chiseling out the grout placed in a slab joint seam.
The Cut Blocks appear to be spaced and aligning with original Slab Drain lines. (the worker with the hammer is sure pounding away).
The bell couplings are oriented towards the “upflow”,
I think that is a “male” pipe end.
Given the surprises in the "as built" vs the "construction drawings", I had to go with the best information (diameter measurement).
The other point of interest: The saw cut in the slab should reveal the upper layer rebar. The only indicators are the faint orange circles. There is one location of an elongated oval, which could be a side cut of a lateral run of rebar. In any case, I would have thought that the rebar would have a more distinct presence in this cut.
One Item I did find interesting is that the dirt/soil goes deeper below the slab in a vertical plane. Thus the slab outline is faced with dirt/soil or this is the true base of what the slab is resting upon. If that were the case, there should be voids under the slab (if water was present in this area of the under slab). The voiding could have been covered by dirt/soil in the vertical digging out of this square section.
The Forensic Team will likely have an interesting report....
From the look of these pictures I am about ready to file an environmental protest.
The vast majesty, the gleaming edges, the weeks and weeks of historical beauty and the epic history or Moonbeam Canyon is about to be lost without the addition of one or two environmentally important Back-fill-Bullet-Trains.
The Owners’ plan has simply directed Kiewit to dig out all the area back to as much solid rock as they can find — again a tactic not used by the original Governor Brown in this dam.
A great history and epic story has been lost for the future generations of Californians. I’m torn up....
On another point, the DWR is keeping Oroville dam at 2/3 capacity or 67% as of today. The smaller reservoirs listed below it are overfilled. Where does the water go if the downstream reservoirs are max capacity? Is it being wasted?
As it always does, it goes down the Feather, joins the Sacramento and flows into the inland delta and hence to the bay.
The prior cut blocks to the drains in the center of the spillway look to be resealed (unless the photo angle gives this illusion).
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